xTract Identifies Specific Threats to Government Networks

Vienna, Virginia (July 14, 2015) – Vienna-based XL Associates, Inc. (XLA) today announced the launch of its new cyber-threat mitigation solution called xTractTM. xTract extends the capabilities of the Government’s Einstein 3 Accelerated (E3A) threat reduction tool by helping Federal agencies manage the millions of notices generated by E3A, and take action on specific network threats or malware.

“In the wake of the OPM data breach, agencies are looking for better ways to identify and mitigate IT security threats,” said Gary Slack, President of XLA. “The government is relying on E3A to accomplish this, but E3A only solves half the problem – it stops known threats. xTract is the solution to solve the other half of the problem – it helps agencies find and eradicate previously unknown threats on their networks.”

Under the US-CERT E3A program, a Federal agency will receive a notice that E3A identified a threat and prevented the threat from infecting the agency’s IT network. The notice, however, does not identify the specific threat or where within the agency the threat originated. E3A will generate hundreds or even tens of thousands of notices to the agency each day. It’s up to agency officials to sort through these notices and identify the specific threats so they can take appropriate action to clean their systems and prevent it from reoccurring.   The work can be daunting.

xTract takes the tens of thousands of notices generated by E3A each day, and shrinks them to just a few prioritized incidents. xTract quickly and easily identifies a threat, enables agencies to mitigate the threat, and helps officials develop policies or programs to prevent a reoccurrence of the threat.

“This is a real breakthrough for any Federal agency required to activate Einstein 3A,” Slack said. “The natural human reaction is to turn off the hundreds or thousands of notices piling up every hour, but that won’t clean the system or make the threat go away. The only responsible solution for an agency is to manage the notices, which is exactly what xTract does.”

To better prepare agencies for E3A, XLA has taken its experience and developed a stand-alone “xTract E3A Diagnostic” to help Federal IT security officials understand the scope of their challenge before implementing E3A. The “xTract E3A Diagnostic” is a quick way for agency security experts to develop plans and better prepare to manage the influx of thousands of E3A notices.

To learn more about xTract, visit www.xla.com/xtract or call (703) 848-0400.